Re: "accepted
a chair"....a little clarification

: : : : : Does it mean the person accepted a job as chairman
of the board?

: : : : Any academics here? I think it means accepting the chairmanship
of a college department rather than a board.

: : : I've recently been accused
of being a professor, so I ought to answer this one. Accepting a chair is the
jargon for taking a professorship. In UK universities at least professors are
the top of the academic tree. The top wire-bending expert would be offered the
chair and become Professor of Wire Bending.

: : A little different here in
the US. Professor is the top rank among the Very rank-conscious faculties of universities
... but being the Chairman of a Department is not quite the same thing as being
offered a Chair. Wealthy alumnus Joe Gotrocks gets his arm twisted by the University
President (that's his #1 job) and Joe writes a nice, fat check for say, a million
dollars. That's not enough to build a building, so Joe's ego can't swell as he
walks past the Gotrocks Center for Wirebending Studies ... but a million is enough
to endow a Chair. The interest on the million is enough to pay a handsome salary
to Professor Schmoe, luring him away from Rival U., so he can become the Gotrocks
Professor of Wirebending. It's his title, and signifies his worth-the-extra-dough
value of his wirebending wizardry, the generosity of the Gotrocks family, and
the ingenious trick of hanging a plaque on thin air to make everyone happy.

:
It's always a dogfight to get to be a department chairperson ... and it often
turns into too much work, and less pleasure than one imagined, so it's not the
Holy Grail of Academe. But ... being offered a Chair, which imposes few obligations
(an extra lecture here and there - no department management!) and which revolves
around prestige -- that's the bee's knees.

I think it originates from the Middle
East in the dark ages, where the 'lecturer' in the university sat in the chair
and his students gathered around, listened and learned. To be offered the chair
was a recognition of great learning and an invitation to pass that knowledge on.